Carrying a Jurassic on me
Chapter 892 - 494 Provincial City Police Visit

Chapter 892: 494 Provincial City Police Visit

In the busy farming season, the market in Sancha River town starts a bit earlier. If one observes carefully, although there are more people than usual, most of them are the elderly, weak, sick, and disabled from the homes. The main labor force of the household needs to prepare for work and simply doesn’t have time to attend the market.

During this period, people come to town almost every day for the market or not, especially the shops selling farming tools, which set up stalls outside every day. The sales of vegetables, meat, as well as liquor, candies, and gifts, etc., at the market are much better than usual.

Although it’s incomparable to the Mid-Autumn Festival period a few days earlier in August, for the business people in town, this is also a rare good business season.

That makes perfect sense. During the busy farming time, some relatives from outside would return, and the children would be on holiday; these are the main consumers.

In fact, since the beginning of this year, there has been a change in the Sancha River area. If someone were to compile statistics, they would discover that despite the declining number of cattle in rural areas over the years, this year the numbers didn’t decrease but, miraculously, increased instead.

With the generalization of mechanization, it is inevitable that cattle will step off the historical stage. Even the most capable cattle can’t compete with a small hand-held tractor, which is something even children in rural areas know.

Furthermore, because of the security issues in countryside in recent years, families with few people and no one to stay up at night wouldn’t dare to consider raising cattle.

Those who have not lived in the rural areas may not know how severe the cattle theft has become these days. Those planning to steal cattle always find an "inside man" first, often idle men or hooligans from the village, to get the details clear. Then, based on the specific situation of the village, they formulate a cattle theft plan.

In some disunited and mixed settlements, where villages are not composed of the same surnames and the relationships among villagers aren’t close, it’s almost like outright robbery; when the theft alerts the household being robbed, the thieves quickly turn into robbers. Others simply break the walls from outside the cattle shed and steal the cattle away. The means vary, but the aim is the same, which is to steal cattle.

Rural houses are often old, and some cattle sheds are made of mud walls; it was not uncommon for thieves to dig a large hole in the wall and lead the cattle away.

Had the cattle theft not been so rampant, Tanghe County wouldn’t have organized militias to patrol. However, even with that said, cattle theft still occurred outside of Sancha River.

Patrol duty is a form of volunteer labor after all; who can persistently stick to it? It was only in Sancha River where, from the very beginning, Yan Fei provided "incentives", and thus the militia patrol was effectively continued and consistently maintained.

But those in the countryside who wanted to raise cattle were mostly still watching. It was not until Yan Fei started to develop cooperative breeding on a large scale and distributed calves that many who wanted to raise cattle became more enthusiastic.

There is a local saying in the countryside called "morale", and it actually refers to the spiritual will of people. Expanded to the entire village, it includes the issue of cohesion.

When the public security is poor, people’s "morale" dissipates; work is lackluster and the "morale" fades even more. It can probably be understood as the attitude ’if something is broken, why not break it more’; whatever is done, it becomes increasingly lackluster.

But when everyone starts to see hope, then people gain more determination. Moreover, there’s another issue in the countryside: the tendency to follow the leader. This is the case with farming; if something a neighbor plants makes money one year, next year everyone will plant the same thing.

The same applies to other matters. Now that Yan Fei has distributed thousands of calves to the local community, these cattle raising households feel that they are raising cattle for Boss Yan and subconsciously feel closer. With three to five households in the same village and the name of the militia associated with it, everyone consciously or unconsciously gathers together, paying more attention to the security issues.

The formation of a small group can stimulate others who raise cattle to join as well. Whether they are raising cattle for Boss Yan or not, when everyone organizes together, the village’s security issues are essentially guaranteed.

In the past, people would sleep with their doors closed out of fear of theft, but now everyone keeps their doors open, staying vigilant at all times. Many people in rural areas have dogs; previously, they were kept inside the yard. But after a discussion, everyone started to tie their dogs near the main door; if they hear any noise, they get up to take a look without losing much sleep.

This is what they mean by "morale" being high. In the past, if people heard dogs barking, they were too lazy to get up. But now, with a newfound sense of honor and responsibility, getting up and shining a flashlight around, shouting a couple of times is not much of a hassle.

If a part of a village acts in this way, it can inspire the entire village. It’s such a small change, but well-organized villages have managed to completely eliminate theft. Not only cattle theft, but even stealing chickens or sneaky activities is impossible.

With everyone on the alert, those strangers who come during the day to "scope out" a place, facing questioning and scrutinizing gazes, can only flee in a panic, identifying the village as a definite ’no-go’ zone in their minds.

A calf does not cost much, and the cost of raising cattle in the countryside is low. As more people raise cattle and theft is curbed, the peace of mind improves, giving the impression that life has hope.

This can be seen in the market—previously without a way to make money, people would hastily save any they had, fearing they wouldn’t have money in case of emergencies. But now, with hope, they dare to spend more boldly; at least daring to eat meat a couple more times isn’t a big deal.

Since this fall started, the Cattle Market in Sancha River town has gained some reputation. Many cattle traders from other places have already started wandering here, mostly transporting calves from other counties to sell here.